


She Always Loved the Children Best

by Elle_Ashe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Tags May Change, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:54:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elle_Ashe/pseuds/Elle_Ashe
Summary: A guardian's purpose, a father's regret, and a boy who needed both...When Avacyn dies, she finds herself floating in the Blind Eternities, gaining the much needed opportunity to reflect and heal.  Boredom soon sets in however, and a bit of exploration leads her to the limits of the limitless multiverse: a wall separating her multiverse from another.  Cracks have begun to form on the wall, and the once-mad angel takes advantage of the damage to find herself in a multiverse so different from her own.  She is quickly drawn to protecting an infant carrying the Curse of Dark Fate - Harry Potter.  It was inevitable; she always did love the children best.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Avacyn, Sorin Markov & Avacyn
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	She Always Loved the Children Best

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to try to stay as close to the post-Mending explanations for everything related to planeswalkers as possible, although I will probably have to play a bit loose with it to have it mesh well with the Harry Potter universe a bit better.
> 
> For Harry Potter fans unfamiliar with M:tG lore, Avacyn was an archangel created by the planeswalker Sorin Markov to protect his home plane of Innistrad. Due to the interference of an eldritch horror, Avacyn went mad and began slaughtering the humans she was created to protect. Sorin was forced to unmake his "daughter", something that grieved him terribly.
> 
> Fair warning, this may or may not go any further. It depends on inspiration and interest.
> 
> The characters, preceding events, and settings depicted in this story do not belong to me but rather to the incomparable J.K. Rowling and numerous gifted writers for Wizards of the Coast including the talented Doug Beyer. I neither seek nor receive profit from this endeavor, save for the pure pleasure of entertaining others.

_Sorin had created Avacyn, so it was cruelty beyond imagining, a pain beyond description, that it fell upon him to end her forever._ "Anguished Unmaking"

When her Father chanted the words of unbinding, reversed the rite of her creation, Avacyn's last thought was the same as her first: _I am to protect_. Her purpose, her entire existence was encompassed by her first and last thought. Following that had come the darkness, and with it, peace. The horrors that came with the realization of what she had done, what she had become, could fade along with her existence. But her peace lasted only so long before conscious thought returned to the broken angel.

As her faculties returned to her, she became aware of her new state of being. She was no longer corporeal, but instead was some kind of spirit, floating in the Blind Eternities. The space between the planes, the very essence of the multiverse, was everything and nothing at once. It was both a place, and a nothingness; a riot of energies and a calm of void. Only plansewalkers could exist for any length of time within the Blind Eternities, but somehow here she was. "How" and "why" were things she had no way of discovering on her own so she turned to contemplating herself instead, trying to make sense of what had gone so utterly wrong.

The first thing she realized was that her mind, her perception, was clear for the first time in...a while (she had no way of noting the passage of time here, if time even had any meaning at all.) Her perception, both of herself and of others, was finally unclouded. She hadn't even realized the clouding of her senses was present; it had been subtle, pervasive. It had been like a dark shroud that had draped over her mind and it had colored her every perception. This clarity was the foundation of the sense of peace she now enjoyed.

The second realization was that her purpose, the reason for her creation, had never wavered. Even at the height of her Eldrazi-induced madness, her singular goal had been to protect Innistrad. She'd been protecting it from the monsters that she'd believed the humans had become, but she had still been doing her duty. She was still Avacyn, still the protector. The fault lay neither with her, nor her Father. This realization brought relief.

The peace and relief continued for an unknown period of time before a new feeling joined them: a feeling of tightness, like a spring waiting to uncoil. In spite of being a creature of pure aether, Avacyn felt as if she still had a skin and there was too much crammed inside it. It took a bit more contemplation to realize that the feeling was restlessness, the companion of boredom. She was dead, how could she possibly be bored? She hadn't been capable of boredom when she was alive! But the itching tightness was undeniable so she stretched herself out and...moved.

As Avacyn left the part of the Blind Eternities she'd been inhabiting, for lack of a better word, she could sense other things for the first time in something that resembled her old sense of sight. Sparks flittered by occasionally, which she quickly surmised were planeswalkers moving through the Blind Eternities as they merged with the shining spheres that floated serenely in the aether. The spheres, of course, were different planes; they gleamed to her not-sight like perfect pearls floating in the chaos. She tried to enter one herself with little concern for which one it was, but her condition did not permit her to return to the realms of the living. Reluctantly, she passed them by until the became fewer and fewer, with no more planeswalker sparks to be seen.

Eventually, she reached a point where she could go no further, a wall of sorts. Father had always told her that the multiverse was infinite, that it had no end but clearly this was not true because she had found the end: an opaque but invisible wall that stretched as far as her senses could reach. Avacyn moved along the wall, for some duration of time but could find neither opening nor blemish. This was the apparent end of her journey. Settling herself against the wall, she decided to rest. The archangel was surprised when, resting against it, she felt a tremor pass through it. The tremor was directional, a point of orientation should she choose to pursue the mystery of its origin; she chose.

The point of origin of the tremor was a small hole in the wall, cracks radiating out from it. Peeking through the small hole, Avacyn found...another multiverse. Or perhaps it was the same multiverse, merely a part that had been walled away by something or someone. Such things were outside her realm of knowledge, and honestly she didn't really care. It was fascinating. As she focused, she began to catch flashes of something, almost like the prayers she used to listen to. Most were blurry and muffled but one stood out: a very young, very pregnant woman with long hair like spun garnets and emerald eyes. She sat in a wooden rocking chair with her hand curled protectively over her swollen belly. "Please, to all the Gods of Old and all the angels on high, help me protect my son."

This was a prayer Avacyn knew very well; it was one she'd heard countless times before in Innistrad. While she may not have known this woman's circumstances, the love and fear that laced her prayer were timeless and needed no explaining. She ached to help this woman, to ease her heart, to shelter mother and child under her wings. She was made to protect, and that need didn't go away even so far from Innistrad. Frustrated, she threw her essence against the wall and to her great surprise found a small part of herself had pushed its way through the fracture. Shocked, she paused, then pushed again, sliding more of herself through the wall until she found herself completely on the other side. 

Full of determination, the ghostly archangel followed the thread of Lily Potter's prayer to the only plane within reach. Latching on to the shining thread of love and faith, Avacyn pulled herself into Lily's world at a place called Godric's Hollow.

Sorin Markov had little need for sleep; it was simply not a biological imperative given his nature as a vampire. He went through periods of a trance-like state that served a similar purpose for him but actual sleep was a rarity. He had found, however, that since the end of Bolas' mad scheme he was having trouble fighting off the act of sleep. He had chosen to stay on Ravnica, for a little while at least, after the conclusion of the so-called War of the Spark. While it might seem like another of his whims, something had tugged at his instincts. For reasons he was still investigating, he felt a pull, a need to be here. He had, however, found himself being forced to resist sleep like a research-crazed academic for the first time in a thousand or so years.

He had taken to wandering the streets at night, both to find what impulse was keeping him here and to fend off unwanted sleep. Sorin was successful only in the latter, and that only by a slim margin. He returned to his chambers tired and irritable and finding his preferred chair occupied by an annoying but competent mind mage did not improve his mood. Jace seemed exhausted himself, but the elder planeswalker chalked that up to the burdens of leadership that had been thrust once more upon the mentalist. Jace's signature coat was draped across the back of the chair, the mage himself seemingly resting and unaware of Sorin's approach but the vampire knew better. The mind mage had most likely detected him when he was still a few blocks away.

"You aren't making this easy, you know." Jace didn't open his eyes, still caught up in whatever mindscape was playing out behind his eyelids.

"If this is some attempt at courting, Jace, then you're doing it wrong." Sorin hung his own coat on the rack by the entrance, but didn't remove the sword belt. In spite of their prior benevolent dealings, he didn't trust the younger that well yet. "Flowers, fresh blood, and the tortured screams of my enemies are preferred."

"Noted." The mentalist gave a one-sided smirk, finally opening his eyes. There was no tell-tale blue glow at the moment, only his natural mahogany color. _A point in your favor, young one_ , Sorin thought. The smirk gave way to an irritated pout. "Since you refuse to retrieve your own messages, I'm here playing errand boy." Sorin gave the younger man a look that said far more than words could and Jace heaved a sigh. "Ugin wants to speak with you. And given his circumstances..."

"The easiest way would be in a dream," Sorin supplied the finish. "I would imagine this explains the desire for sleep that's been making my life difficult recently." He inclined his head with a gentility that still came to him naturally. "Very well, I suppose I can sleep for a little while." Jace stood to leave, swaying on his feet a little before regaining his balance, and eliciting a deeper frown from the older planeswalker. "And how long has it been since you've slept?"

"It's of no consequence." He waved his hand dismissively. "I have a few more things to do and..."

"And you can do them after you've rested. The guest room is through that door." Sorin pointed to a door to Jace's right, and gave the younger man a smile both charming and chilling at once. "Do not think to leave my home until you can safely stand. You have done me a service and I would be a poor host if I let you leave in such a condition."

There seemed to be little fight left in the mind mage as after a brief consideration, the younger planeswalker slowly made his way to the guest room. "Just a nap and I'll be fine, Sorin."

Sorin watched Jace until the other man had stretched out on the guest bed, ready to catch him if he tipped over. He listened to the younger man's heartbeat until it settled into the slower rhythm of sleep before seeking his own bed. 

Avacyn found Lily in a charming little house in a small village that looked not so dissimilar from what she was used to on Innistrad. Granted, this place - Godric's Hollow - lacked the heaviness in the air that her former home had and everything seemed almost bright and fresh by comparison but the villagers dressed in a manner quite similar and the architecture was close enough. Everyone here appeared to be a magic user but it was hard to pinpoint what kind of mana the mages were using: a mix of blue and white perhaps, as enchantments and protective spells seemed to dominate. One thing that was all too familiar to her was the fear that seemed to bubble under the surface; the furtive glances, too-quick movements, the nerves strung taut. She did not think it was too far a stretch to assume that whatever had Lily praying was the same thing that had the rest of the village looking over their shoulder.

Having been invited in by Lily's prayer, Avacyn had little difficulty in passing through the front door. Puttering around the living room was a young man roughly Lily's age with messy hair and eyeglasses. Another mage, apparently: he was humming off-key while assembling a crib with magic. Lily's husband, most likely, as he looked nothing like the young woman; the baby's father at the very least. She would observe him later. Right now, Lily was her first priority. The spectral angel floated up the stairs, honing in on the source of the prayer that had driven her to force her way into this multiverse. Lily was once again sitting in the wooden rocking chair, in a small room that was clearly meant to be a nursery. The red-haired mage was knitting a blanket in soft colors, directing the needles with magic. Avacyn hovered her hand over Lily's swollen belly to feel the child within, something she had done many times before her death. Before the madness had descended, she could read the soul of the unborn child and tell if it was a boy or a girl and if it was healthy. 

Her soul-sense had not deserted her. This was a boy, healthy and strong, with plenty of potential for magic. Before she removed her hand, she sensed something else, something familiar and wholely unwelcome. The child already carried a curse in the womb, a strong one. It was a curse she'd seen more than once, but never in an unborn child: the Curse of Dark Fate. Lily's son was destined to live a life of pain and suffering, a life much shorter than it should have been. She had been able to break that curse more than once, when she was at the full capacity of her powers but without a body, she wasn't sure if there was anything that she could do. She was, essentially, a ghost and ghosts had little power in the realm of the living.

Gently, Avacyn placed her hand over Lily's, thrusting her awareness deeper within the baby's as she tried to get a better feeling for the curse. As if sensing her presence, Lily's son kicked and a ripple of contraction brought a sharp gasp from the young woman. It was time for Harry James Potter to enter the world. Avacyn watched as gossamer threads of Prophecy wrapped themselves around the still-squalling newborn, tied closely with the curse. In spite of how their last meeting ended, the ghostly angel truly wished her Father was here; she was sure that he would know how to help the Potters. She had never experienced helplessness before and she wondered, briefly, if this was her punishment. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is fairly rough, and I apologize. It's more of a plot bunny and proof of concept. No beta I'm afraid; you're stuck with my own proofreading.


End file.
